September 12, 2007

A couple of days ago, I wondered why it was that DOJ would decide to intervene against Net Neutrality--months after the comment period to do so closed. Well, Free Press was wondering the same thing and has submitted a FOIA request to find out. They're asking for:

All shared or public calendars of the above-named employees for the above-noted dates, including, but not limited to, entries listing all meetings with non-government individuals, businesses, trade associations and/or other organizations and the subject of the meeting.

All email or print correspondence, during the above-noted dates, to or from any of the above-named employees concerning the FCC’s Broadband Industry Practices inquiry, or including the words “network neutrality,” “net neutrality,” or “broadband industry.”

All email or print correspondence on any subject during the above-noted dates between the above-named employees and any employee of, or attorney, government relations specialist, or lobbyist for: AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, Hands off the Internet, NetCompetition.org, Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, US Telecom Association, Qwest, Cisco Systems, and Corning Inc.

Any studies, assessments, reports, or factual data (or drafts of studies, assessments, reports, or factual data) gathered, during the above-noted time period, by the above-named employees or any other employees in the Antitrust Section of the DOJ, which were prepared in drafting the September 6 network neutrality ex parte referenced above.

If it were up to me, I'd specifically ask for communications from Lobbyist In Chief Ed Gillespie, since he's a former lobbyist for the companies in bold. It's kind of the MO of this Administration to have the orders flow directly from the White House to those who execute those orders.

But it probably doesn't matter anyway. After all--it's not like this DOJ is all that responsive to FOIA requests, anyway.

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes. Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the National Security
Advisor, this morning called a group of network executives to raise
their awareness about national security concerns of airing
pre-recorded, pre-taped messages from Osama bin Laden that could be a
signal to terrorists to incite attacks.

It was a very collegial conversation. At best, Osama bin Laden's
message is propaganda, calling on people to kill Americans. At worst,
he could be issuing orders to his followers to initiate such attacks.

Townsend in right in one important respect: Bin Laden’s communiqués
are propaganda. But they’re propaganda that needs to be taken
seriously, and our actions and our own efforts at shaping public opinion in the rest of the world need to be improved. The terrorist’s credo of the propoganda of the deed
is about sending a message. The more dramatic the message AND the
delivery, the more effective the terrorist will be. As terrorism
expert Brian Jenkins
succinctly put it, "terrorism is theater." Al Qaeda obviously
understands this, and is adapting this dictum to the information age:

September 07, 2007

Mcjoan has a post on how the DOJ intervened all of a sudden into the FCC's consideration of Net Neutrality. As she points out, there's something unusual about DOJ's intervention: it came after the comment period had closed.

It was a curious filing, as IP Democracy's Cynthia Brumfield describes:

What’s curious about the filing is that, first, it’s an ex parte, or
late, submission in the FCC’s Inquiry on Broadband Practices, most
commonly known as the FCC’s net neutrality proceeding. DOJ could have
filed comments along with the rest of the world by July 16, the
deadline for all submissions, but it didn’t. Why DOJ waited until now
is an interesting, probably unanswerable question.

A number of people in the comments suggest DOJ intervened as pay-off for the telecoms' help on our NSA spying program. But I don't think that can explain why DOJ missed the deadline. I can understand not wanting to file anti-net neutrality comments right before Congress debates whether or not to give the telecoms retroactive immunity for helping our government to spy on us illegally. So that might explain why DOJ wouldn't submit its comments in mid-July, when Congress was busy discussing amendments to FISA.

Except that Congress is again about to discuss amendments to FISA, specifically immunity for the telecoms. And a lot of people in Congress are probably rethinking their vote, having been chewed out by constituents for it while marching in the Labor Day parade. Having the telecoms made out to be worse players right now, just before the debate, isn't going to help telecom get their immunity and their private Internets.

In other words, the FISA amendment probably doesn't explain the timing.

I can't say I can explain the timing, mind you. But there are two events that have happened between July 16 and yesterday which might explain the timing. First, Gonzales resigned (though he's still making trouble at DOJ). Also, Ed Gillespie, the big telecom lobbyist, just assumed most of Karl Rove's portfolio on Monday morning.

Did the Lobbyist-in-Chief--who until June was working for the US Telecom Association--have any say over whether DOJ supports Net Neutrality?

September 02, 2007

The NYT has a really weird story out today which tries to explain why news outlets don't publish "open secrets" about public figures.

Old-fashioned as it seems, there are still tacit rules about when an
open secret can remain in its own netherworld, without consequence to
the politician who keeps it. But now that any whisper can become a
global shout in an instant, how much longer can those rules apply? And
should they, anyway?

[snip]

In the mainstream media, the recent standard for pursuing open secrets
has been murky, but generally guided by the notion that private
behavior matters when it is at odds with public declarations. Mr.
Foley’s bawdy flirtation with pages was fair game not least because he
had sponsored legislation seeking to protect children from online
predators. Mr. Craig supported a 2006 amendment to the Idaho
Constitution barring gay marriage and civil unions and has voted in
Congress against gay rights.

Of course, the article gets a bunch of things wrong. The mainstream media let Craig and Foley (and continues to let David Dreier and others) off the hook for years, in spite of their clear hypocrisy. And Jim McGreevy was not outed because of hypocrisy--he was outed because of the clear impropriety of hiring his boyfriend (and here again, the example of Dreier is worth raising). Nor does the mainstream media ever point out the hypocrisy, in this case, of the Republican Party, which likes to mobilize the base by cultivating homophobia while remaining quite tolerant (up to a point--Dreier couldn't become majority leader, after all) of barely-closeted gay men. At some point, the hypocrisy of the Republican party needs to become part of the story.

And perhaps most curiously, the article doesn't discuss the reasons to report legal wrong-doing--even if it involves personal behavior. That is, shouldn't the media have reported on Foley's behavior with congressional pages, since those pages were underage? Shouldn't the media report that David Vitter has admitted to breaking the law?

And, finally, the article doesn't quote either of the two people who ought to be quoted for the story, Mike Rogers and Lane Hudson. Are they afraid to talk to the guys who proved the mainstream media complicit?

August 23, 2007

I thought it worth mentioning that the Administration has twice made claims in the last week that their website refuted. First came Senator Leahy, who noted that Cheney's claims not to be part of the Executive Office of the President were disproved by the White House website.

The Administration’s response
today also claims that the Office of the Vice President is not
part of the Executive Office of the President. That is wrong.
Both the United States Code and even the White House’s own web
site say so – at least it did as recently as this morning.

Then yesterday, CREW pointed out that the White House website disproved White House claims that the Office of Administration was not subject to FOIA.

After learning that the Bush administration claimed
that the Office of Administration wasn't subject to Freedom of
Information Act requests, CREW did some research. Seems the White House
website, which is an official voice of the Bush administration, states
otherwise:

In fact, evidence that the Office of Administration is subject to FOIA requests is made here and here and here and here on the White House website and even once on the Department of Justice site here.

Rather than wait for the next ridiculous White House claim to be disproved by its own website, I say we try to anticipate it. What assertion, made on the White House website, do you think we should just ignore as a mirage invented by some over-imaginative White House webmaster? Some of my nominations include this whole section of the website, particularly this one. We ought to assume this, this, this, and this simply aren't true. And while we're at it, I'm just going to presume that this never happened--since it's on the White House website, it must not be true.

See how much fun you can have simply ignoring things you don't like that appear on the White House website?

July 28, 2007

This is ripe. Apparently, the conservative blogosphere realized there wasn't a good defense for Harriet's claim of immunity from being subpoenaed, so they called the White House and begged for talking points. And then they published those talking points. Which, first of all, exposes to all the world that conservative bloggers are willing to gobble any kind of shite thrown at them.

If Congress pursues criminal contempt and the DoJ refuses to prosecute,
how do they move forward? -- No one really knows. There isn't any
precedent on this point.

[Ed. both the White House and Ed Morrissey are pretending they've never heard of inherent contempt. Snip]

What about the call for a special counsel on Alberto Gonzales? -- The
law no longer exists for an independent prosecutor, and the "special
counsel" is accountable to ... Alberto Gonzales.

[Ed. Someone better tell Patrick Fitzgerald, Alberto Gonzales, and Paul Clement--because they would all beg to differ, both about Gonzales' recusal on this matter or the ability to recuse authority over a special counsel more generally.]

It also demonstrates that neither the "senior official" (is this Fred Fielding, giving transparently erroneous legal advice off the record again?) nor a bevy of conservative bloggers have read the Constitution. At least that's the only logical conclusion I can draw from the fact that Morrissey doesn't correct this claim.

Executive privilege is particularly strong in this case. The power to
hire and fire federal prosecutors belongs exclusively to the executive
branch. Congress has no particular oversight in these matters, and so
the executive privilege claim is very compelling in this instance.

As I have pointed out over and over and over again, hiring and firing federal prosecutors--particularly interim USAs like Tim Griffin--is something the Constitution explicitly gives Congress the authority to legislate. This is authority the White House itself did not contest, neither in 2006 when Bush signed the PATRIOT provision, nor earlier this year when he signed its reversal. So either Morrissey's post is intended to expose conservative ignorance once and for all, it's a secret message for conservatives everywhere that Dick has given the sign that it's finally time to burn their copies of the Constitution, or it's simply proof that conservative bloggers are willing to regurgitate transparent falsehoods if their President gets in a legal bind.

Most likely, it's a combination of all three.

Update: LOL. I hadn't read TRex before I wrote this. He's got a better sense of humor than I about right blogistan's stupidity.

July 27, 2007

I've been trying to ignore Novak's publicity tour while staying on top of his ever changing story on Plame. But (via TP) this is just too inviting.

I’m 76 years old, and pretty soon I’m going to a place where there are no blogs.

Why, why, Novak? Why do you look forward to heading off for your time in the Eighth Circle of Hell, simply because we bloggers aren't there? (I have it on good authority that Gilliard is enjoying his time at the never-ending barbecues of Heaven.) Is it because we call you on your shit? Is it because while the trained reporters get blank stares in their eyes and complain that "my head hurts" when we point out your changing stories, even our readers can catalog how your stories have changed every time the legal need presented itself? Is it because we point out that just nine months before your book came out, you stated "You could write a book on the bad journalism"? Or is it because when you say, "my account is close to the truth," we only dispute your definition of "close"?

Well, I hope you're in no rush to get to that Eighth Circle, because I am going to do a big debunking (just as soon as the library gets the book in--I'm not paying Novak a cent, of course). And if I finish it after you're gone, then I'll just take solace that we'll both be doing what we should be.

July 26, 2007

As regular readers of this site know, I've always been against the
movement to impeach President Bush. I take this position not because he
hasn't done plenty to merit it. My reasons are practical. Minor reasons
are that it's late in the president's term and that I think impeachment
itself is toxic to our political system -- though it can be less toxic
than the high officials thrown from office. My key reason, though, is
that Congress at present can't even get to the relatively low threshold
of votes required to force the president's hand on Iraq. So to use an
analogy which for whatever reason springs readily to my mind at this
point in my life, coming out for impeachment under present
circumstances is like being so frustrated that you can't crawl that you
come out for walking. In various ways it seems to elevate psychic
satisfactions above progress on changing a series of policies that are
doing daily and almost vast damage to our country. Find me seventeen
Republican senators who are going to convict President Bush in a senate
trial.

On balance, this is still my position. But in recent days, for the
first time I think, I've seen new facts that make me wonder whether the
calculus has changed. Or to put it another way, to question whether my
position is still justifiable in the face of what's happening in front
of our eyes.

[snip]

Whether because of prudence and pragmatism or mere intellectual
inertia, I still have the same opinion on the big question:
impeachment. But I think we're moving on to dangerous ground right now,
more so than some of us realize. And I'm less sure now under these
circumstances that operating by rules of 'normal politics' is
justifiable or acquits us of our duty to our country.

Reminds me a lot of the posts he was writing in Fall 2002, such as this post, written on September 20, 2002.

July 07, 2007

The blog vs media discussion is pretty ancient,
now, and this isn't meant to reopen what is in many ways an irrelevant
discussion. Both are here, both use each other, both have something to
offer (for a contemporary example, this longish video of a Fred Friendly seminar on government response to a pandemic
also illustrates the dynamic between bloggers and the media in a
'breaking news' setting). In that context, I came across an interesting
article as I was writing about the press and their coverage of the Iraq war debate.

To be sure, some people still want knowledge, but it turns out that
what the citizenry really craves is an open microphone. The Internet
has provided that opportunity. Every day is "open-mike" night in
America. The premium isn't on facts, but on attitude. In the early
years of the 21st century, the Information Age has morphed into the Age
of Opinion. We are all pundits now, and it's not a pretty picture.

That was Carl M. Cannon, writing in the subscription only National
Journal, about the effect of the toobz on discourse, knowledge and, I
suppose, the liberation of the id. There are real issues documented:

Sara Kiesler, a professor of computer science and "human-computer
interaction" at Carnegie Mellon University, has identified five factors
that encourage bad behavior online: 1) the likelihood that people in an
online community simply reinforce one another's views, in
ever-escalating rhetoric; 2) conversely, the easy access -- a single
click of the mouse -- for people from an outside group who abhor the
dominant ethic of the first group; 3) the kind of anonymity that
prompts people in cars to flip the bird to sometime who cuts them off
in traffic; 4) fewer social cues -- after all, you're at a computer
screen -- to remind people of the norms of behavior; and 5) a low risk
of sanctions for those who violate those norms.

Having said that, Kiesler believes that new codes of behavior --
"netiquette" is the term of art -- are evolving. "I think there are
technologies, such as rating and reputation systems, that are working
within communities to keep people from violating norms," she said in an
online interview. "Some online communities have policies and rules, and
they kick you out if you don't behave yourself. I think technologies
for encouraging good behavior and discouraging bad behavior are going
to improve with the ability to track people's social networks across
the Internet. It's going to be possible to use people's connections to
make them less invisible and less anonymous online."

Cyber-communities like Daily Kos do have imperfect, though
reasonably effective, self-policing methods assisted by technology,
though self-restraint is always preferable. But lumping political
incivility with the darker aspects of "Web-facilitated crimes" runs the
risk of missing the reason people want to grab the microphone in the
first place.

Bill Moyers has been writing and speaking on this aspect of blogging for some time (link from May, 2004, hat tip DHinMI):

I think the Internet, the blogging, is the closest we've come in a
long time to the history of the American media in the beginning. You
know in the 1820's, 1830's all you needed to be a journalist was to buy
a press. That's why they called them inkstained wretches. Because they
operated their own hand presses. For a little bit of money, like Tom
Paine and others, you could have your own press. ... After the
revolution independent journalists, printers they called themselves,
sprung up all over the country ... they were partisan by the way,
vociferously. They attacked the others' politics. but it was a healthy
period of bombast in America in which people could sort out the
information. I think the bloggers, then the websites, come closest to
the spirit of cacophony, to that democratic expression, that we had in
the early part of this country's history.

July 03, 2007

Kagro X has a post at Daily Kos discussing whether the endgame on subpoenas is simply for Bush/Cheney to continue to defy the Congress and then to pardon anyone who has the misfortune to actually be found in contempt. Pretty depressing.

But not everything can be pardoned. Bush and Cheney presumably will never face the voters again, but plenty of other people will, assuming we remain a Republic. And while many of these people are beyond shame, the voters may not be impervious if the fundamental question is posed this way: Are you with us (the people) or with them (the powerful) and against us? This is the contrast that must be drawn, over and over--do you favor special treatment for the rich and well-connected or the chance at a good life for ordinary Americans? End what Rick Perlstein calls The Big Con, the con job run on ordinary people who have been induced to vote Republican, thinking that some of the largesse will trickle down to them, while the con artists laugh all the way to the bank and the also-conneds in the press giggle with them.

One strategy for the blogosphere to undertake, through calls to Senators and Congressmembers, to ascertain where those Congresscritters stand on several issues and then through maintainance of a database like Josh Marshall's Fainthearted Faction on Social Security and through YouTube, hold them to their positions. The Libby pardon is one that can be hung around their necks right now (hello Fred Thompson), but there will be more, many more.

As a parallel strategy, and one that plays to their strengths and natural inclinations, the Dem leadership should engineer a series of votes where Congresscritters have to take a stand on issues that heighten this contrast. Budget votes. Votes on the War. Votes on contempt for defiance of subpoenas. Votes of confidence. Votes to curtail presidential powers. Votes on health care. Student loans. You name it. Over and over. Are you with us, the people, or with them, the powerful? The results can be added to the database. The commercials will write themselves, like these being run against GOPers who voted against funding for veterans. After all, the party Committees and candidates have to do something useful with all that money they are raking in.

In short, use the process against them--it is one of the most efficacious powers of the powerless, in Vaclav Havel's terms. Make them go on the record. Make them defend the indefensible, over and over. And then hang it around their necks.